West Ferris students collect thousands of pounds of food for North Bay Food Bank

If you live in North Bay, you may have seen students from West Ferris Secondary School go door-to-door Wednesday evening collecting food for the local food bank.

There’s a spirit of giving and thanksgiving in the air at the school.

If you live in North Bay, you may have seen students from West Ferris Secondary School go door-to-door Wednesday evening collecting food for the local food bank. (Eric Taschner/CTV News)

The yearly tradition collects thousand pounds of food for the food bank for the Thanksgiving season to ensure struggling families have enough to eat not just at holiday, but year-round.

"It’s really important to give back at this time of year," said Grade 12 student Gordon Walker.

"A lot of people I went up to said how much they love West Ferris and how much they love that we’re giving to the community."

For last 17 years around the Thanksgiving season, students in West Ferris venture out into neighbourhoods in the city collecting donations for the city’s hungry through what’s called The Trojan Food Drive.

Social science teacher Mark Robertson is one of the leads for the food drive.

"It used to be that the radio stations would coordinate this city-wide food drive and where all the high schools would be involved," he said.

If you live in North Bay, you may have seen students from West Ferris Secondary School go door-to-door Wednesday evening collecting food for the local food bank. (Eric Taschner/CTV News)

If you live in North Bay, you may have seen students from West Ferris Secondary School go door-to-door Wednesday evening collecting food for the local food bank. (Eric Taschner/CTV News)

"That sort of disappeared but we’ve carried on the tradition."

Around 150 students and volunteers were out and about collecting at total of 11,300 pound of non-perishable food items and other necessities.

Thursday morning, with the help of some friends at Chippewa Secondary School, they unloaded it all at the food bank.

"I was actually pretty surprised. I wasn’t sure we were going to get that much -- especially with expensive food items are this year," said Grade 12 student Evelyn Garbutt.

The North Bay Food Bank said it graciously received the donation as the food collected will ensure it is stocked for its food hamper program.

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According to the food bank’s website, its fixed address hamper program serves clients once every 30 days. Each hamper contains one to three days about worth of food. The items clients receive depend on what is donated.

"When we’re putting out over 400 hampers a month, you think about all the elements that go in like soups and kraft dinners and pasta and sauce and they’re in multiples, that’s a lot of inventory we need every month all year long," said executive director Debbie Marson.

If your home was missed, you can still make a donation directly to the food bank.

"I feel pretty proud to be a part of the West Ferris community that gives back," Garbutt added.